A young solo mother loves her son and his needs are formost, but she still has room in her heart for her very broken brother, even as her fundamentalist mother rejects her. But when the brother is responsible for a woman's broken neck, during his burglary of her house, families are changed as crisis amplifies and at times the young mother seems to be the only adult.

Janey is on vacation with her brother, Jim, mother, Kate, and father Ed, at their beach house on the Mahurangi Peninsual in New Zealand. Ed and Kate, who are on the verge of divorce, sit around in the back yard all day drinking whiskey and Janey and Jim are left to their own devices. Cady, a local boaty who is having an affair with Kate, catches Janey's pubescent eye. In response to his wife's drinking problem and recurring infidelity, Ed turns to alcohol, ignoring his children almost as much as his wife, which eventually leads to a character's fate.